


in the turn of the universe

by desperheaux



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Ambiguous Ending I'd like to think is Happy, Angst, F/F, Intergalactic War, alternative title: drifting [comma] and other forms of loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29214438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desperheaux/pseuds/desperheaux
Summary: She doesn’t remember much from Earth. Just that the ocean was big, and then the ocean dried up, and then it stopped looking like sadness when it was four lightyears small behind the wings of a fighter pod owned by the Federation, or insurrectionists, or some other few out of three quintillion.Distance is supposed to make the heart grow fonder, but all Chaeyoung does is forget.
Relationships: Kim Dahyun/Lee Gahyeon, Myoui Mina/Son Chaeyoung
Comments: 7
Kudos: 20





	in the turn of the universe

**Author's Note:**

> I never thought I would find myself writing with twice characters, especially since this was a spin-off of a deukae-centric space opera (far more lighthearted/comedic/laserpewpew-y) that I've been planning, but... sometimes yearning emo lesbian space engineer chaeyoung character makes some points
> 
> Content Warning for mentions of war, mundicide, and nayeon swearing unnecessarily a couple of times

Chaeyoung doesn’t remember much from before the universe turned over.

She remembers the academy, and that transforming into the Federation, and her one-in-a-million talents becoming one out of three quintillion lives scattered across galaxies previously unreachable to humankind. The universe turned over, and wrapped Earth into its fold with cold, immutable arms: an afterthought, a coincidence, that opened infinite possibility to a planet now realized as insignificant. Humbling, or unifying, or inspiring — if only humans knew how to react to potential with anything but greed, and the desire to control. If only the universe cared to respond with anything but impassivity.

Chaeyoung never officially graduated from the academy since the Federation needed their talents for the war, and so never officially became an engineer, galactic or otherwise. Maybe if they had given her a title, she would have known what to do. Maybe she wouldn’t have forgotten what she was meant to be before the turn of the universe. But instead she was just Chaeyoung, one out of three quintillion, so all she could do was as she was told. She was told to build ships. She was told to craft weapons. And then she was told to destroy Earth, which was one of seven-hundred sextillion.

She doesn’t remember much from Earth. Just that the ocean was big, and then the ocean dried up, and then it stopped looking like sadness when it was four lightyears small behind the wings of a fighter pod owned by the Federation, or insurrectionists, or some other few out of three quintillion. Distance is supposed to make the heart grow fonder, but all Chaeyoung does is forget.

“Distance is time and time is relative and relativity is nothing but a passing conversation, anyway,” is what her old classmate Dahyun said with a casual shrug when she told Chaeyoung the Federation was sending her off to Andromeda the next day. Which meant that they didn’t trust her enough to defend the Milky Way, which could very well have been because the quirky almost-engineer referred to ‘a million’ as a ‘thousand-thousand’, and every other word some other meaning only she understood and refused to explain. Or it could have been because Dahyun knew following orders isn't the same thing as loyalty. Dahyun, too, is one of three thousand-thousand-thrice-over.

After all, that is why she is now Chaeyoung’s crewmate of three years, with many more to come and go in the same mindless, maddening way.

That’s why they’re all here, really, the eight-member crew of the Nido 009. Seven, Chaeyoung reminds herself. It’s been seven of them for six months. Not that time means anything here.

She glances at Tzuyu, who remains sitting with arms wrapped around tucked knees, at her usual perch by one of the only windows on the ship. Her glassy eyes could almost be reflective as she stares out into the gaping emptiness of the galaxy. Chaeyoung still doesn’t know why Tzuyu is here, but knows if she asks she won’t get a response. Jihyo probably knew.

Tzuyu used to talk to Jihyo in shy but quick torrents, the others only in stilted phrases, almost a distant memory of clouds looming like a threat but preserving rain like a promise. And then Jihyo flew the other scout pod into a black hole and didn’t come back out, and Tzuyu hasn’t spoken a word since. And then Chaeyoung realizes she thinks of their captain in past tense, even though six months can’t outlast two and a half years, and maybe time really doesn’t mean anything here.

The Federation calls it “an honorable mission to prove their loyalty”. Dahyun calls it “drifting”.

For Sana and Momo, it’s punishment for stealing a ship to defend their home planet caught in the crossfire of a proxy war. For Nayeon, it’s a warning for asking her fighter pilot superiors too many questions; for Jeongyeon, whose voice is hard but eyes soft when she looks at her flying partner, it’s what she gets for following Nayeon.

For Jihyo it was reassignment for “accidentally” ordering a cargo ship into the ground, one that had been set to deliver fifty tons of plasma bombs in the guise of food commodities to a Gliese planet already ravaged for its resources. Even Dahyun, when asked again, because there’s not much else to talk about except who they might have been, says something about falling for a princess-turned-pirate. No one knows what she really means by this, but when questioned further, she shrugs and continues to tinker with some device she’s been perpetually fixing since she joined the Nido 009.

This is what Chaeyoung has been watching her do for the past hour. It’s boring, but without any petty fights between Nayeon and Jeongyeon to break up, and with general ship upkeep duties attended to, there’s nothing to do but wait for the scout pod to return. Vaguely, she wonders if that’s really what Tzuyu has been doing for six months, when she stares out past the docking bay into nothing.

Chaeyoung hates silence. She doesn’t understand the others, most of the time, and Dahyun none of the time, but her fellow sort-of-engineer still reciprocates when Chaeyoung tries to maintain a passing conversation. There used to be camaraderie amongst the eight that almost made their endless voyage bearable, but then Jihyo disappeared and took it all with her. Like sound waves of laughter in a vacuum. Like eyes pooled with tears, drying up like an ocean.

Chaeyoung hates silence, but that’s all that space is, and that’s the only thing she knows now.

“Transmission came in. We’re getting a replacement tomorrow,” Dahyun says offhandedly over the tiny clinks of bits of metal on metal.

Chaeyoung lazily runs through a list of the ship’s faulty equipment in her head, and then out loud, because there aren’t many words to say anymore and she might as well. “For the frontside carburetors? That bent intake manifold? The hall lights...?”

Dahyun lets her finish before she shakes her head. “For the rust,” she says, and Chaeyoung’s slow, meticulous train of thought freezes.

“Why?” she asks, a cracked syllable, because she understands what this one means. Because even though the nothingness of their routine is unbearable, sometimes it’s worse to live something out of the ordinary.

The Federation doesn’t care about them so long as they complete their tasks. One fuel tank; one satellite check. Report the same thing: nothing amiss. Receive sustenance for crew and ship via pre-programmed delivery pods. Move on to the next in the torturously slow set speed of the Nido 009. Thousands of solar systems; millions of satellites. The pointless mission didn’t stop when they lost a crew member, and the response to Jeongyeon’s eventual transmission said nothing but to appoint Nayeon as interim captain. They don’t need a replacement for Nayeon’s old main gunner position, not when the ship’s cannons have no purpose other than to sit cold atop its fixed head.

The iron components would have rusted, back in the oxygen on Earth. For some reason, Chaeyoung thinks of the ocean, how corrosive the saltwater tasted. She hasn’t remembered taste in a long time, or maybe that’s just distance, or maybe it’s all relative, anyway.

“Not for us.” Something small clicks into place in Dahyun’s hands. “They’re sending another one to drift.”

Chaeyoung is here because she did what she was told. That’s all she’s ever done.

She wonders if the new member could have possibly done something worse.

//

The floors in the Nido 009, save for the padded docking station, are soldered sheets of metal that make their Federation-issued boots echo down each hallway. Chaeyoung has each of her crewmates’ gaits memorized. There is no night or day here, but even if there was, she knows they wouldn’t all sleep at the same time. Someone is always pacing the corridors, if only to ensure there is some sound on the ship other than the white noise of electronic beeps from the navigation room, to assure themselves that they can still be heard.

Dull sirens blare out from the dock. A vehicle lands, and Chaeyoung figures it’s the scout pod coming back early until a set of unfamiliar footsteps, tentative but measured all the same, ring out down the hall. The vehicle takes off again, but Nayeon is here — she, Jeongyeon, and Dahyun too busy pretending to care about a card game to notice. Tzuyu isn't in the navigation room with them, rooted to the port window as always.

“Two jacks.”

“Three-of-a-kind.”

“Bullshit. Let me see your sleeves.”

“Same deck, same uniform, Im. Hasn’t changed in three years.”

“Neither has your bullshit. Let me see.”

The footsteps pause, arriving at the noise from the navigation room. Chaeyoung is the only one to stiffen, body still unused to things out of the ordinary, even if the universe has taught her nothing but to accept its unyielding order.

And yet, Chaeyoung is still the most unprepared for the face that appears in the doorway. Because she doesn’t remember much from Earth.

Just that the ocean was big, and then the ocean dried up, and somewhere in between there was Mina.

She looks different, if Chaeyoung thinks about how they only ever knew each other on Earth; she looks exactly the same, if Chaeyoung thinks about the taste of forgotten things like the ocean and tears and fireworks. Chaeyoung wonders if that’s what distance does to the heart, or if sometimes it’s just time, or if all of it stopped mattering once the universe turned over.

The way Mina scans the room in a glance and shifts her weight onto her heels, stance not so much the confident at-ease of one of the Federation’s most decorated gunners as it is the assured posture of one who knows their position in the conflicting stratagem of three quintillion; this is familiar. The easy neutrality in her eyes when she finishes her analysis and comes back around to hold Chaeyoung’s stare; this is familiar too, in the way that reflections sometimes are.

“Who the fuck are you?”

Nayeon’s naturally aggressive tone cuts across the suddenly silent room. The cards in her hands, already worn from years of the same games, bend dangerously as she stands.

“Lieutenant Myoui, replacement gunner for the Nido 009.” Her voice is the same. Soft, but matter-of-fact. Jarring in its contrast to Nayeon’s sharpness. It fills the room with its lack of volume, like the sound of distant boots dutifully marching along an empty, echoing hallway.

“We didn’t ask for a replacement.”

Chaeyoung knows Nayeon read the transmission, just as Nayeon knows none of them asked to be here. She fixes her gaze on the scattered pile of cards already played and discarded.

“I was sent as one.”

Nayeon bristles. “We don’t _need_ a replacement.”

Mina appears unaffected by her hostility. “Am I speaking to Captain Im?”

“ _Interim_ captain,” Nayeon all but snarls, cards tossed down to the floor. Jeongyeon is quick to throw her own hand as she rises to grip her old partner’s forearm in warning.

“Interim Captain Im,” Mina says, and it might have come across as stiff and rehearsed if Chaeyoung didn’t know that everything about Mina has always been fueled with intent. “I was sent as a replacement gunner for the Nido 009. Lieutenant Myoui, reporting for duty.”

It brokers no room for argument. Like this is a fact; like the ocean was big, like Jihyo is gone, like Chaeyoung once knew what love tasted like.

All relative, but fact all the same. Nayeon’s trembling silence is a reminder that acceptance is relative, too.

The room is awashed in tension, broken only by the quiet, droning beeps of the outdated main console. But after three years and a lifetime, they can’t stay silent for long.

“I’ll show you to your quarters,” Jeongyeon says eventually, even though her eyes are on Nayeon and Nayeon’s eyes are on Mina and Mina’s eyes are back on Chaeyoung. All unreadable, in the way that unseen things often are.

The unfamiliar cadence of their paired footsteps echoes in Chaeyoung’s head even after they’ve faded out of earshot.

Nayeon jerks her arm like she’s still in Jeongyeon’s hold, furious. “Who the fuck does she think she is? Thinks she can just come here like… like _that?_ ”

Still holding a small fan of cards, Dahyun shrugs and continues her turn. “Don’t think too badly of her. She fought frontline in the war, you know,” she says knowingly. Chaeyoung almost forgot they went to the same academy. Almost forgot Mina was recruited long before them. Almost forgot the world used to be theirs, too.

“Which war?” Nayeon scoffs. “There are hundreds this side of Betelgeuse alone.”

“One of them.” Dahyun waves her hand vaguely.

“That sounds an awful lot like an excuse.”

“Isn't that what all wars are, anyway?”

Dahyun drops her cards to reveal a full house, but it doesn’t matter because the others have folded long ago.

//

The scout pod returns without much fanfare. Chaeyoung only really notices the droll pulse of the docking alarms when Tzuyu moves from her window to meet them.

Sana hops from the pilot’s chair with grease on her cheeks and an easy breeze in her voice. “Mission completed; nothing accomplished!” is all she chirps, brushing past for the sponge bath stalls. She doesn’t notice the new addition to the crew, doesn’t really notice any of them after these trips, really. She tosses the observation report comlink over her shoulder, like a bridal bouquet remembered only as an afterthought of tradition.

Dahyun is the one to catch it this time. Mina observes the gathering with vague curiosity. The rest of the crew doesn’t hold their breath, but waits all the same, because there’s not much else to do. It’s almost perfunctory, how they cast a sympathetic glance at the tinted gunner cockpit, from where Momo has yet to emerge.

“Cygnus 12 routine check-up: passed. Minor repairs to sentinel discs; cause: weathering of time…” Dahyun skims the rest as the pod hisses, the gunner hatch releasing its pressure. She switches the comlink off as Momo drops to the docking floor. Her boots make hardly a sound as they steady on the polyurethane insulation.

“Observed,” Dahyun finishes just as quietly: “fireworks on Kepler-182 through 194.”

Sometimes Chaeyoung hates how Dahyun calls things differently, monikers of familiarity only she knows how to speak. There is another word, many others, for the light-shows of bombs and burning atmospheres that eclipse planet after planet in displays so stunning they can be seen even from space. From tens of lightyears away. From a cockpit darkened to hide glassy eyes that are only there to observe, over and over, until distance reminds them to look away from what is only in the past. There are other words, but Chaeyoung supposes there aren’t any other good ones to describe this familiar phenomenon: an intimate proximity to something far too distant; swirls of color made so out of reach in this infinite canvas of darkness, that the sound lags long behind and vibrates through a medium only later, all at once, in dampened sobs around an empty dock.

Fireworks. The destruction of planets, of but a few in three quintillion. Chaeyoung wonders if Dahyun had another word for the ocean.

“What’s the point,” Momo’s voice tapers hoarsely like she means to question more, but doesn’t. She kicks the heavy cylinders of the pod’s laser cannons, to be used only in the case of necessary self-defense. Ironic, and awful, because no one cares to attack an old ship that can only fix observation satellites for fireworks that the Federation doesn’t care about.

Everyone else gives Momo the grace of pretending they don’t hear. In the wide, empty yawn of space, there is no room for sympathy, for things as big as loss.

Still, Nayeon is already moving to check the fuel supply by the right arm of the pilot chair, and seeing enough to last at least one cycle around the nearby solar system, she straps herself in without a word of explanation. She doesn’t have to give one. Jeongyeon stiffens beside Chaeyoung, like this isn't how it’s worked for the past six months, like up until two weeks ago she wasn’t the one sliding into the gunner’s seat with a string of complaints only obligatory because it was Nayeon, and still sort of for Jihyo.

This is the part where everyone turns back to their stations like their interim captain isn't abandoning hers for, in the scathing words of Jeongyeon, a useless game of hide-and-seek.

“You don’t know if she’s alive, and even if she was, she ordered us not to follow her — don’t you get tired of being insubordinate all the time? Don’t you ever get tired of making everyone else burn with you?”

The weight of her accusation lingers still, two weeks later. There is fragility behind the stubborn fire in Nayeon’s eyes; she was the only one who never stopped questioning orders, and in a way, she is the reason for why she now has to give them. Maybe Jeongyeon only admitted it so the rest of them didn’t have to. Or maybe she just wanted to say, “I followed you, once, and I can’t do it again,” so that Nayeon will finally command her to stop. So that Jeongyeon can finally let go of her.

In war, in space, in a prison meant for eight; there is no room for guilt. Later they will sit and deal the same deck of cards and argue over the same petty topics as if none of the heavy things matter. And maybe they don’t, not anymore, since the universe has turned over.

Even so, two weeks and a lifetime ago, Nayeon couldn’t tell her old partner to stand down.

Jeongyeon is the first one to leave the docking bay.

Everyone moves to follow, except for Mina. Arms held neatly behind her back, she looks less like a seasoned soldier and more like a determined student as she thoughtfully watches the scout pod take off again. This, the bright gleam in her eyes when presented with a challenge, is more familiar than the unfazed glance she regards Chaeyoung with whenever they’ve happened to cross paths in the past couple of days. Both make Chaeyoung look away.

She remembers a moment suspended in time, when the pounding of the ocean overlapped with the thrum of her pulse and turned everything into one great roar so overwhelming it sounded like silence.

Chaeyoung hates silence.

She and Mina have not exchanged a word.

//

“She was a general, from what I remember. Federation’s finest. Five stars, or something.”

“Yeah, she was famous around our arm of the Milky Way. Amazing pilot, even better gunner. And she did both on her own. Refused to have a partner in the cockpit.”

“Could’ve been a good bounty hunter, probably. Never let a target out of her line of fire.”

“Too bad the Federation doesn’t like rogues.”

Sana and Momo don’t so much bounce dialogue off each other as they do toss sentences up just to watch them land. Sana’s voice is cheerful and light, Momo’s is flat and low; both are like this because they have to be. They meet somewhere in the middle of the contrast. They could have made a strong fighter ship duo, if the Federation liked rogues.

Chaeyoung chews distractedly on her lip. She can’t really stop herself from hearing them. They’ve gathered in front of the port window to share a meal of what is really just flavored paste, using the facade of communion to make sure Tzuyu doesn’t forget to eat. It’s one of those unmentioned things the crew does all together, like welcoming the scout pod back, or pretending they don’t see Nayeon leave, or continuing to walk when they hear someone crying in the docking bay so there is some other kind of noise down the corridors.

Passing conversations. Mina, last seen in the navigation room, is the topic of choice.

Chaeyoung focuses on the little crystals and wires in Dahyun’s hands. There can’t be a purpose in her fiddling, after three years, but Chaeyoung almost finds comfort in the thought.

“That was a few years ago, though. Maybe they changed the ranking system.”

“Guess it doesn’t really matter who’s a lieutenant and who’s a general, as long as the Federation gets their stars.”

Chaeyoung wonders why Dahyun doesn’t speak up with what she knows about Lieutenant Myoui. Like how she was the best in their class. Always meant for greatness, even after the universe turned over. How her reserved demeanor disguised an undertow of intensity that was as unyielding and unforgiving as it was breathtaking.

“Who cares what Myoui was?” Nayeon huffs around a mouthful of paste. “What I want to know is why the fuck she’s _here_.”

“I’m here because I missed.”

Chaeyoung bites her lip too hard in surprise. She wasn’t the only one who didn’t hear Mina walk up, according to the way Nayeon chokes, and the slightly embarrassed lull that cuts off Momo and Sana’s lazy contemplation.

Mina’s voice is still the same. Quiet, sure. Like the steadiness of a heartbeat. Like waves rolling into a cliffside.

“I was supposed to shoot an insurrectionist base ship. I hit a high-speed commodity cargo ship instead, which had plasma grenades in its hold. Three Federation leaders were caught in its trajectory.”

Chaeyoung licks the nick on her lip. The copper tastes like air before a lightning storm.

Dahyun’s hands still once Mina leaves them to their awkward silence. Chaeyoung knows why, and suddenly she doesn’t want her to speak up.

“Truth is relative, too,” the other sort-of engineer says.

Nayeon squints. “You saying she’s lying?”

“No.” Dahyun shakes her head, and what follows might be the most easily understood thing she’s ever said. “I’m saying that Myoui doesn’t miss.”

//

Everything about Mina is intentional. Her words, her eyes, her hands; every idea is executed with a purpose, although it’s not so much action as it is reaction — she lets others make their move before she strikes, leaving them like thunder catching up to lightning. It’s why she could almost be at home in space, where sound doesn’t carry and galaxies are plagued with light.

It’s why Chaeyoung deserves to drift.

Because she doesn’t remember much from Earth, just that the ocean was big, and to Mina it was home.

//

It was a shared wry glance across a classroom, and then shy smiles in intermissions between evaluations, and then it was a passing conversation.

“Everyone’s so competitive here. I don’t get why.”

“Me either.”

It could have stayed as that. But then, time and distance and relativity were only things to be studied, not survived.

“Would you like to fly with me?”

Chaeyoung should have known then, that this was the start of the storm. Because this was Mina. Mina, blurting out the offer, pretty eyes widening because she didn’t mean to ask like that.

“Well, I’m more used to repairing the ships instead of crashing them, but if that’s all the same to you… I’d like that a lot.”

At that time they had Chaeyoung crafting ships. Soon they would have her building weapons. Somewhere in between she would create a home around Mina and the ocean and her heart, and then she would destroy it.

Because Mina never told Chaeyoung to love her.

Chaeyoung only ever did as she was told.

But now, lightyears and lightyears away, Chaeyoung realizes that this was the only thing she never truly had a choice in.

//

The Nido 009 isn't the newest of models. It doesn’t need to be, not for routine check-ups on Federation satellites. The equipment isn't faulty, per se, but sometimes the hallway lights go out and require a couple of tweaks to sputter on again.

Chaeyoung built the newer models. Like the ones that carry food commodities to Gliese planets already ravaged for resources. Distance is forgetting, or an excuse, which is all that wars are anyway, so that’s why on this ship she has never been able to really forget.

She has just finished repairing the coolers in the navigation room ceiling with Dahyun, a ladder lugging between them, when the light fixture above them makes a popping noise and suddenly the hall goes dark. They pause in tandem, blinking. They’re here, and they’re the sort-of engineers, and they might as well; Chaeyoung still sighs when she feels her side tipping up, but helps Dahyun blindly set the ladder to its feet.

“I don’t have a torch,” she says, peering into the darkness for her crewmate.

“That’s alright, I have a light.”

Chaeyoung squints as a dim, pale blue column switches on in front of her face. It’s a small mirage of light that takes the form of a beautiful young woman, her almost regal, flowing dress belied by the sloppy flower crown perched crookedly on her head like someone else had just placed it there. She slowly breaks out into a smile, eyes curving in pure happiness. A long number floats above her head where the projection grows faintest. Chaeyoung follows it with her eyes as Dahyun holds the plexiglass pedestal in one hand and climbs up the ladder with the other.

She is struck with the realization that this is the device Dahyun has been working on all this time. And that they are all here because of their lack of loyalty, in one way or another, so maybe out of every unfaithful soul sent to drift, Dahyun deserves to be here the least.

“Is that your princess-turned-pirate?”

“A hologram.” Dahyun pauses on the second to last step, tapping the image like it could be solid. The figure shimmers like the device is refreshing itself, and the girl begins to smile again. The numbers above her head change.

Chaeyoung wonders what they mean. “How’s it work?”

Dahyun gingerly sets it down on the top of the ladder and pulls out a tool from her belt, giving the fixture above her a couple of test wacks. “Pepper’s Ghost effect.”

Chaeyoung knows how a hologram works. They went to the same academy. They were both taught the same things. She steadies the ladder with both hands as Dahyun actually examines the blowout, and clarifies:

“What do those numbers tell you?”

Dahyun pauses. She lowers her wrench and taps the hologram. The number shivers, and changes again.

“That she’s eighty-thousand-thousand-and-two lightyears away.”

The way she reads it out is matter-of-fact, like the way Sana throws a report over her shoulder and heads inside without looking back, the way Jihyo used to resolutely punch in the assigned coordinates to each fireworks display across the galaxy. It is also small, like lonely footsteps making the same turns down an empty corridor, like a shout turned into a whisper by an unnavigable sea.

Dahyun taps it again, eyes reflecting the light that makes the hologram smile and the number increase. The sight burns something inside of Chaeyoung.

“You still love her,” she notes, not so much a revelation as it is just something to say. She watches as Dahyun turns to wack at the light fixture again. “From eighty-thousand-thousand-and-two lightyears away, you still love her.”

And distance is time and time is relative and relativity is nothing but a passing conversation, anyway, so Dahyun shrugs.

The familiar, casual gesture irritates Chaeyoung more than it should. “The universe could turn over again, and you’d stay the exact same, wouldn’t you?”

The engineer leverages the wrench and grunts. “Is that worse than letting it turn you over, too?”

A bolt comes loose. Chaeyoung has time enough to let go of a rung to intercept, but lets it hit the floor at her feet. It is quiet as it rolls away into the darkness.

A small distance farther than her hand; if the floor weren’t there, she wonders how far it would go, how long until someone reaches out through the relativity of space to catch it. If they would even hear it fall.

Footsteps fill the quiet from down the hall. The light sputters back on. Dahyun’s hologram disappears in the sudden brightness, and Chaeyoung blinks rapidly at the sudden switch.

The footsteps halt. A heel turns. Chaeyoung’s eyes focus in time to see Mina’s back disappearing around a corner.

It’s almost like a memory, but maybe it's just distance.

//

Before the turn of the universe, before Mina was scouted and recruited by what would soon become the Federation, and even before Chaeyoung knew she loved her — they would sneak out of the academy dorms in socks, trying to make their giggles as soft as their muffled footsteps, and fly under the moonlight to Mina’s favorite place.

Chaeyoung had figured out how to hide their tiny practice podship from radar and audible detection, turning a roaring engine into nothing but the sound of their steady breaths as they gazed in awe at the expanse below them. Mina never said much on these nights, even when they touched down in a clearing close enough to make the climb short but far in enough that the distant academy lights couldn’t spot them. Chaeyoung hates silence. She never minded when it was just the two of them huddled in their alcove overhanging the sea.

Chaeyoung wasn’t from a part of Earth that saw the ocean much. She was fearful of a body so all-encompassing and powerful; she would yelp whenever the moon above looked full and heavy and the tide below would crash so strongly it sent droplets hungrily lapping at their feet.

It reminded Mina of home. And whenever she would turn to gaze at Chaeyoung with glittering wonderment, with swelling affection in fluttering eyelashes and the salt of the ocean air on her lips, Chaeyoung would lean closer into the terrifying unknown and let the taste of home become hers, too.

//

“Pair of tens. Who’s more delusional, Im or Myoui? I vote Im. The only reason the other pod still registers as a possible signal receptor is because the Federation builds shitty ships.”

“Pair of queens. I built the Nido line, just so you know. Why is Mi—Myoui delusional?”

“Yeowch. Now that’s a crime worth this punishment. And Myoui’s only been here a month and she’s talking about getting out. Dahyun, your turn.”

“Bust,” Dahyun says, neatly setting her cards down and rising to leave. She pauses by the door, and looks back at Chaeyoung as she adds: “Storm clouds always hold truth. You didn’t just build your own grave, you know.”

Jeongyeon gathers their cards to shuffle for a new round. She flips Dahyun’s hand and scoffs in disbelief.

“She had a royal flush, just out of order. What a weirdo.”

Chaeyoung has no response. In the ensuing moment of quiet, an out-of-place sound filters down the nearly empty corridors, something she vaguely recognizes but can’t bring herself to remember. Something gentle and familiar and all too far away.

She can almost taste it.

//

“We could just… go.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere. Anywhere you want. You fly, and I’ll shoot down anyone who tries to stop us.”

“But isn't this… you’re meant for greatness, Mina. Isn't that why you’re here?”

“I’m here to defend my home. They’re taking me away from it.”

“The universe is open now. There will be other oceans—”

“It’s not about the ocean, Chaeyoung. It never was.”

//

The first time Mina dove into the sea, Chaeyoung thought she lost her. But Mina never did anything without intent, without a plan, without turning to Chaeyoung with a mischievous sparkle in her eye before throwing her completely out of equilibrium.

It was a beautiful night, the kind of clear that almost hurts to lie awake under. Chaeyoung had never gotten as close to the edge of their alcove as she had then. Under the reflection of the moon, with the academy lights twinkling like beacons along the horizon, the ocean looked like a blanket of stars. Mina surfaced with a laugh at Chaeyoung’s panicked shouts, and the sound carried through impossibly still air, up and up and echoing throughout Chaeyoung’s chest.

When she finally climbed back up to her, plain academy sleepwear clinging to her shivering frame and eyes even brighter than her cheeky smile, Chaeyoung already knew what she was going to do.

“You should come with me next time.”

“Never in a million lightyears.”

And as Chaeyoung opened her arms to receive her, resigning herself to getting soaked too, Mina laughed again and leaned them closer to safety and danger all at once. Her lips tasted like saltwater and her hands caressed like moonbeams. And Chaeyoung was in love, just before the turn of the universe.

The last time Mina dove into the sea, storm clouds drifted over everything like a breath held until unbearable, and the wind was so righteously inexorable it snatched the meaning right out of their desperate shouts. And when Mina took that leap without her, the first flash of lightning, Chaeyoung should have known that her whisper into the wind and rain — “I’m so sorry” or “I’m just scared” or maybe it was “I love you, even if the universe never told me to, but I don’t know how to be yours when I’m just one in three quintillion” — would be drowned out by the first boom of thunder, a foreshadow of all the fireworks to come.

She stumbled away, back to safety, tasting the salt of tears instead of the ocean.

It was then that Chaeyoung truly lost her.

//

She realizes what the out-of-place sound was while lying in her bunk, eyes wide open in pseudo-night time.

Tzuyu’s voice. And intermingling with it, Mina’s laugh, a sound softer than light yet somehow more overwhelming than the mourning howl of a breaking storm.

Chaeyoung turns over onto her side and stares into the darkness like she might find a burning horizon there. Minutes or a lifetime later, she lets sleep drift her away, the rhythm of someone pacing down the hall almost like the tide.

//

“Hit me. I know this hunk of metal doesn’t have warp capabilities, but instead she wants to hold the excess fuel, which means we can’t look for Jihyo after checks. The fucking nerve.”

“Stay. Even if it were possible, we’d be marked as insurrectionists and hunted for the rest of our godforsaken lives. She can talk all the inter-galaxy politics and war secrets all she wants; we all know it’s bad. What can we do.”

“Hit me. Bust. Who are we talking about?”

“Myoui. Didn’t she try to talk you into it yet? She even got Tzuyu to say something.”

“Come to think of it, Son, I haven’t seen you exchange a single word with Myoui. I know she’s never going to be Jihyo’s replacement or whatever bullshit, but she’s not a half bad poker player.”

“Hey, where are you going? Chaeyoung?”

//

They only notice when the food rations come up a bit extra and they casually crowd around Tzuyu, assuming. Mina is there too, easily finding her place amongst a crew whose roles are all an illusion, anyway. Chaeyoung chews her bland paste and doesn’t look up. There is a lull in chit-chat as everyone thinks of something that hasn’t already been said, and it’s then that the absence of quiet tinkering and quirky comments becomes observable.

“Where’s Dahyun?” Sana wonders.

Everyone glances around and begins to rattle off speculative excuses. Everyone but Chaeyoung, who rises wordlessly and begins to search the ship, because even if an afterthought it’s still a tradition, and to miss it probably doesn’t mean much in an endless voyage of repeated interactions, but sometimes to live things out of the ordinary—

She shoves open the door to Dahyun’s quarters just as the hall light sputters out behind her.

The soft glow of Dahyun’s hologram burns loyally in the darkness.

Chaeyoung steps closer; watches the princess-turned-pirate break into a smile, almost seeing how the dexterous hands of an almost-engineer turn clumsy as they fix the flower crown atop her head.

The number drifting above her reads a small, delicate zero.

Maybe storm clouds are distant delusions, intangible harbingers of hope for what they cover; the waning sadness of the moon reflected in the ocean, the possibility for thunder to catch up to lightning, the great universe beyond that has turned again and still offered her a choice.

She makes her way back to the rest of the crew, not recognizing the resonance of her own footsteps.

“Well? Did she fall asleep in the sponge bath stalls again?”

“She’s gone.”

It’s not Chaeyoung who says it. For a moment, no one recognizes the hoarse, hesitant voice.

“She warped,” Tzuyu clarifies after another stunned moment, gaze still fixed out the port window to where an unfamiliar pod had silently flashed into existence and a minute later right back out. “It’s possible.”

It’s possible, that Dahyun knew love doesn’t follow the order of the universe. It’s possible, that a small scout pod meant for two but only holding one could survive getting folded through time and space. It’s possible, that there will be other oceans.

Chaeyoung doesn’t know which she means, but the storm breaks all the same.

She looks at Mina to find her already looking at her, eyes familiar like fireworks and moonlight and the ocean.

And Chaeyoung remembers Earth.

//

Now, it is Chaeyoung who takes the leap over the edge. After lightyears and a lifetime, it has to be.

“I’m sorry. For letting you go. For destroying our home.”

It’s a start. With Chaeyoung still trying to turn her outdated coffin into their escape from a pointless orbit, with Mina still convincing them that the fight for freedom is worth it. It’s not a lot, but it’s a start.

“We’re still here.”

And it’s not forgiveness, not yet. Maybe it’s time, or distance, or relativity; maybe it is the taste of the only other concept that transcends the folds and turns of the universe.

For now, it is a passing conversation.

**Author's Note:**

> these are basically just a bunch of vignettes of stories that will probably never be told, but in my head there's a whole 100k deep-dive into jeongyeon/nayeon's toxic relationship and another 200k for tzuyu's backstory. the important thing is jihyo is definitely somewhere out there in the universe c:


End file.
